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From: jerry johnson
Date: 10/22/01
Time: 1:09:27 PM
Remote Name: 205.188.200.52
Hi LeAnne: I hope Eric responds to your inquiry because he was on the receiving end of our emails and he can talk to you about being on that side of things. You ask some very important questions and make some excellent observations. Our emails were up close and personal, as you would see if you get our freebie. We pulled no punches. Generic, self-help books and pamphlets also do some good, but, again, emails can be very direct. I sometimes felt, over the 45+ years of laboring in the stuttering swamp, that what went in one ear went out the other just as fast. email is a permanent record, if printed out, of the human exchange. This way both parties can ruminate over them over a period of time and refer back to them as needed as a refresher. Sometimes in therapy I felt a few "gems" were tossed around which often were not repeated or hung on to. Email gets around this since the gems are there to be read and digested. Email can be quite spontaneous, or as sponteneous as the PWS wants it to be and this can occur at any hour of any day. Sometimes Eric would email a reaction that really taxed my personal and professional competency and I was glad that I had a little time to reflect upon his email. At times it probably was good that he couldn't SEE my reaction too. As for "real" I don't think that we could have been more real with each other. Our emotionality shows many times in our exchanges. Eric does not "see" an SLP and he does feel the need to do so. Maybe there will come a point in time when he might wish to but that is his call. It is hard to break away from our usual means of delivering Rx and I didn't know how this would work from the outset. As for email Rx with Eric I am satisfied with his satisfaction. Knowing Eric I know he would let me know if he wanted more personal contact. We did talk on the phone a few times and this was good too. I would encourage email Rx in combination with traditional hands on therapy, but if it is not possible I would not hesitate to replicate the email Rx as Eric and I experienced it. Eric is a unique kid and I have appreciated the trust that he gave to me to guide him over some rough spots in his road to adulthood. Lastly, I have not had this type of comprehensive email experience with any other client but I have had some "long distance" email exchanges with some other people. I hope this helps. Maybe you would like to take advantage of our offer of the freebie to get the total picture of our email exchanges. My best to you and to all the long suffering students.